EVER WONDER WHAT IS INSIDE THE FONT FOLDER? What is the difference between a Postscript and a TrueType font? Has anyone asked you if you owned a Postscript printer? Most computer users -- and even some experts -- get glassy-eyed when asked to explain the differences between Postscript and TrueType fonts.

Scalable fonts allow the user to adjust font size on the screen as well as at the printer.

Adobe introduced Postscript in 1985 and put the computer world in a tizzy. Postscript is a scaleable font system that is compatible with Postscript printers. It allows users to see fonts on the screen the same way they would be printed -- this was the first WYSIWYG. Up until this time fonts were in the form of bitmaps and were not screen scaleable. Adobe had cornered the market, desktop publishers and graphic artists had to buy into Adobe's font system if they wanted screen scaleable fonts.

Picture by Warren Bartelome

In 1990 Apple and Microsoft joined forces to create TrueType fonts. During this period Apple and Microsoft were battling for market share of the computer industry, but neither wanted to pay a third party to include scaleable fonts within their system software. In 1991 Apple introduced TrueType fonts in its system 7.0 software, soon followed by Windows.

Icons within the font folder.

Not much, really. Postscript fonts use an algebraic function of cubic polynomials whereas TrueType uses a quadratic polynomial. TrueType may be faster in the printing process but as computer processors get faster that difference will soon be unnoticeable. The real difference lies in how the fonts are managed by the computer. TrueType fonts contain complete packs of information on the fonts, while Postscript fonts contain some information, but the brains are located within the Adobe Type Manager (ATM) -- free if you purchase any of Adobe's programs.

Duke Raley , Educational Technology Masters Student.